488 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1941 



could be made according to two principles: (1) synthetically, build- 

 ing the syllable from signs to be understood as fractions of the sylla- 

 ble, which together made the whole syllable; (2) by repeated affirma- 

 tion, that is, by combining, in the sense of repeating, different ways 

 of denoting the whole syllable. A word of one syllable, or often a 

 syllable within a longer word, could be written by either method, 

 or by both together, as in the case of this writing of the word kan. 

 The signs ha and n build the word synthetically, the sign han repeats 

 it; we have double writing, but only single reading. It is as if the 

 writing said "my first is ha, my second is n, my whole is one of the 

 values of the snake-rattle sign, and so must be han."" The combina- 

 tion is, by sum of all its parts, ha-n-han, but we may use the con- 

 vention of transliteration ha-n'^'^^ to show that the final ham. is a 

 doubling in the writing only, not in the reading. 



No. 2, figure 2, is the sign cluster meaning iguana, or large lizard, 

 a meaning which is quite obvious since it accompanies plain pictures 

 of that animal, besides containing such a picture itself. But this 

 one picturelike sign, no matter how much it may look like the animal, 

 is not sufficient by itself to write the word meaning iguana. The 

 Maya system, as already noted, requires combination with at least 

 one other sign before we can have a unit of writing, capable of 

 standing alone. The exceptions to this rule form a very restricted 

 list indeed, the most important ones being the 20-day signs, which 

 are single elements enlarged to the size of a full cluster and capable 

 of standing alone. The month glyphs and calendric and math- 

 ematical glyphs in general conform quite to the rule, being clusters 

 of signs. No. 2 writes the one-syllable word hu "iguana" entirely 

 by the method of repeated affirmation, using the ordinary sign for 

 hu^ No. 6 of figure 1, topped by an iguana figure, which of course 

 has the linguistic value of the animal's name. Here the formula 

 which we use in transliterating is hu-hu, to be read or pronounced, 

 of course, as "At<." 



No. 3 writes the word humhu, the name of a Maya month, entirely 

 by the synthetic method. It is the well-known glyph of this month 

 Cumhu as found in the codices. It uses the feather sign hum, No. 11 

 of figure 1, plus hu, No. 6, so we transliterate hmn-hu. Some other 

 words of the codices using the sign hv/m, No. 11 of figure 1, are 

 humah, the stem "sit" with transitive suffix meaning "seats" or "car- 

 ries seated," and hwmoQ, another word meaning snake (cf. Quiche 

 humag "snake") . Although we are still somewhat in doubt as to the 

 values of the vowels in these words, the general phonetic contour is 

 interestingly confirmed by the fact that the codices write hvmhoh 

 not only as hwm-ma (with 11 and 15) but also write it as hw-m-a, 

 while Landa cites a way of writing the month Cumhu which is the 

 cluster of kw-m-hw; in both of which writings hw and m are signs 



